The bombing of Bach Mai Hospital by the Americans

On that
day the United States used all kinds of airplanes, especially B-52s, in
order to bomb Hanoi. Among the
targets was Bach Mai
Hospital.

Twenty two, Take 1 Clapstick

Interviewer:

Could
you describe the events of the night of December
22, 1972?

Nguyen Luan:

The United States used all
kinds of airplanes, including B-52s, to attack Hanoi. Among the targets was Bach Mai Hospital which
had many patients of all ages, including children and babies. I am both
a surgeon and a professor at the Medical School in Hanoi. During the days when the American planes
dropped bombs on Hanoi, medical
doctors and medical students all remained at the hospital in order to
treat the victims of the bombing as well as other patients brought to us
from the areas surrounding Hanoi.

On the night of the 22nd the United States sent waves
after waves of B-52s to attack Bach Mai Hospital directly. It was nighttime
then, and all of us medical doctors and students as well as patients
were hiding in the bomb shelters under the hospital. We were all too
familiar with the thundering roars of the B-52s which vibrated in the
air for an extended period. When the, bombs dropped directly on us, we
charged out and gathered all our students to go to the two bomb shelters
outside to treat the wounded. The spot which you are standing on now
used to have a bomb shelter which was hit directly by a bomb.

There were thirty persons in the shelter at the time,
most of them women and children. Cries and moans filled the dark night.
We had to use knives, hammers and shovels to break through the concrete
walls in order to get to the victims who got caught in there. I can
never forget the cry of a woman who said: "Brothers and Sisters, please
help me. I still have four young children." As a surgeon who specialized
on operating on people to save them, this time I used my surgical knife
not to save people but to cut out parts of the bodies of the people who
got stuck in that bomb shelter in order to gain entry into the shelter
to rescue those who were still alive.

It was a sight which I will
never forget. The United States was extremely barbaric. It would be a
normal thing to drop bombs on the battlefields. But on this hospital the
United States employed special weapons to drop bombs over the heads of
doctors in their white uniforms and on children and babies lying in
their sick beds. Now, and perhaps forever in the future, doctors like me
will not only have to tell their students to love their patients but
also to remind them of the destructive acts of the United States on this
hospital.

Twenty three, Take 1 Clapstick

Interviewer:

How
did you feel at the time of the bombing when you were actually digging
the people out? What were your feelings?

Nguyen Luan:

When I stepped out of the
bomb shelter I saw that the main building of the hospital, which
included my operating room, had been destroyed by the bombs. Personally,
the hospital was
a place where I had lived in for a much longer period than in my actual
home. I felt that I was confronted by an immense difficulty.

As a doctor and a surgeon
whose operating room and all the equipment therein destroyed, whose sick
ward and all the beds bombed to pieces and whose friends and patients
had been buried under the concrete slabs, I was left with a very deep
imprint. But the terrifying cries and moans increased my love as a
doctor and made me forget all my fatigue. I ran in and out all night and
all day trying to rescue those who were still alive and also to bring
out the corpses of those who got buried in the bomb shelters so that
their loved ones could claim them. I regarded this as a very necessary
thing for a doctor to do.